Curriculum Accreditation: More Empowerment

Affirming the effectiveness of training program accreditation, but from practical implementation, many highereducation institutions realize that the regulation requiring accreditation of all programs puts great pressure on training institutions and overloads the accreditation organization system.

Great pressure

Dr. Nguyen Thuy Van - Permanent Vice Principal of Thanh Do University ( Hanoi ) commented: The work of assessing the quality of university training programs plays an important role in ensuring and improving the quality of school education; helping the school determine the level of meeting the goals, programs, educational content, ensuring that learners meet the output standards of the training program. The assessment results are evidence of training quality, helping the school affirm its reputation and quality in training; at the same time, constantly improve and enhance quality.

However, according to Dr. Nguyen Thuy Van, the regulation requiring external assessment and evaluation of all training programs causes many difficulties for schools, such as high costs, complicated procedures, and long implementation time. Educational institutions must carry out the training program assessment cycle every 5 years.

If the school has to complete the training program accreditation as prescribed, the funding source to be paid can be very large; in addition to the official contract costs, there are additional expenses.

The training program accreditation process includes self-assessment, external assessment, appraisal of assessment results and recognition of educational quality standards; implemented over a long period of time. Each stage must be fully prepared with evidence, meeting the requirements of criteria and standards, ensuring transparency and objectivity.

Perspective of Mr. Nguyen Vinh San - Head of Administration Department, University of Education (University of Danang ): The regulation requiring accreditation of all training programs in recent times has encouraged universities to standardize the training process and improve quality. However, in the process of operation, there have also been shortcomings that many experts and managers at universities have spoken out about in recent times.

Accordingly, the number of accreditation centers is small, the number of auditors is lacking, the level of professional concentration is not high, while the number of training programs is large. This leads to overload, difficulty in arranging assessment schedules, affecting the progress of universities. The target according to Decision No. 78/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister has not been achieved in most criteria. The accreditation of training programs requires a large number of specialized personnel and time to prepare evidence. Each accreditation period mobilizes hundreds of people inside and outside the school.

In addition, the cost of accreditation for each training program is not small, especially for public universities that are not financially autonomous. The above pressure leads to some cases where formalities, coping, chasing after achievements, evaluating many training programs at once; it is necessary to study the recommendations for universities from experts, or the reception and improvement of schools are still limited.

“It is also unreasonable to equate all training programs in different fields, or different scales and levels of influence. We are lacking a set of standards for specialized industries/fields, especially those with great social impact such as health, pedagogy, law, journalism…”, Mr. Nguyen Vinh San added.

Decentralization

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Trung Kien - Head of Quality Management Department (Hanoi University of Science and Technology) said that Hanoi University of Science and Technology has implemented the accreditation of about 80% of university training programs; the accreditation and assessment organizations are all international. In practice, the requirement to externally assess and assess all training programs puts pressure on educational institutions in allocating resources for self-assessment and external assessment. For lecturers, performing teaching and scientific research tasks is already a great pressure; this pressure increases when adding the not small amount of self-assessment.

“Currently, there are many accredited training programs, but the quality is not commensurate. Educational institutions will run after quantity, meeting the required quantity, without paying attention to improving and enhancing quality.

In addition, there is still inequality between the scale and characteristics of higher education institutions, and it does not encourage the development of internal resources. Educational institutions will have to spend a lot of money on quality assessment activities; while the effectiveness of quality improvement depends more on the internal capacity of the institution than just through a single assessment.

From this observation, Associate Professor Dr. Tran Trung Kien proposed decentralization to a number of educational institutions that have achieved a high level of autonomy and have achieved quality accreditation, have a good internal quality assurance system to self-assess and recognize training programs. The Department of Quality Management organizes periodic monitoring of this self-assessment. In case of violation, the right to self-assess and recognize can be revoked. At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize quality improvement activities and have measures to monitor this in educational institutions.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Vinh San said that it is necessary to study more decentralization for higher education institutions; especially schools with enough capacity to organize self-assessment and accreditation of training programs.

Specifically, recognizing the role of self-assessment has legal value for institutions that have achieved high-level educational institution accreditation and have a good internal quality assurance system, through a standardized process, with periodic supervision from the management agency. Encouraging peer assessment models among universities, especially in groups of schools by field (such as groups of pedagogical, technical, medical schools, etc.), to create learning and improve training quality in the same field.

Mr. San also proposed to apply stratification/grouping in accreditation: accreditation is only required for programs with large scale and social impact, or newly opened programs that are not yet stable. Accredited training programs can be renewed according to the mechanism of checking quality assurance conditions, or self-announce quality assurance conditions with evidence of improvement.

Another option is: Clearly specify the mandatory conditions for opening a major, and conduct accreditation after students graduate. If the level is “good” or higher, there is no need for a second-cycle accreditation, only inspection or self-reporting, and public disclosure of quality assurance conditions. Strengthen the mechanism of publicity, social accountability, and post-inspection instead of comprehensive pre-inspection, to reduce procedural burdens, and at the same time create conditions for schools to be proactive in improving substantive quality.

“We hope that when amending the Law on Higher Education, we will add mechanisms and regulations to decentralize the autonomy of evaluating and accrediting training programs for qualified educational institutions that have achieved system accreditation, helping universities promote international integration and improve training quality.” - Dr. Nguyen Thuy Van

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/kiem-dinh-chuong-trinh-dao-tao-trao-quyen-nhieu-hon-post739770.html